A spur-of-the-moment phone call sent contractor Brian Mitchell on a plane Feb. 26 to check on his crews building a bridge over the Ohio River, far away from home base in Menomonee Falls.

The more than $20 million Kentucky job is the farthest Mitchell’s Choice Construction Cos. Inc. has traveled for a project. Crossing state lines is usually a practice for the heavy hitters of the construction industry.

Mitchell, whose company is hanging girders for the bridge project, is taking the first steps into that heavy-hitter tier thanks to growth Choice achieved working on highway mega-projects in the Milwaukee area. Mitchell said Choice likely will do roughly $9 million in work volume in 2014 and reach a peak workforce of 100.

“We will almost double in volume this year over where we were two years ago,” Mitchell said. “The (Department of Transportation) work has allowed us to get to the point where we can take advantage of the opportunities that are coming now. You have to have the capacity to take advantage of opportunities. You have to have the guys. You have to have the skills.”

The Wisconsin DOT is in the midst of a more than $5 billion generational rebuild of the region’s interstate system, and local contractors such as Mitchell are landing significant amounts of that work. The long pipeline of construction has the immediate effect of stimulating jobs and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin, but it also allows contractors to forge new partnerships and skills that help them grow well into the future. The interstate system reconstruction has given builders a fertile field to take on bigger projects, add employees and expand their business.

Many area projects are providing that lift. Contracts worth a combined $243.4 million are either wrapping up or ramping up for the $1.7 billion Zoo Interchange reconstruction, according to Wisconsin DOT contract documents reviewed by the Milwaukee Business Journal. As of mid-February, $7.5 million of the $172.3 million Hoan Bridge reconstruction was done. There is more in the pipeline, however. Work will start in October on the first major contract for the Zoo Interchange’s mainline highways.

Such projects keep road builders healthy, but also bolster broader economic development, said Kevin Traas, director of transportation policy and finance for the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association. The reconstruction of the Lake Interchange in Milwaukee, for example, will create new land for development by moving ramps and supporting nearby private projects on downtown Milwaukee’s lakefront, he said.

“In addition to creating good-paying jobs and work opportunities for transportation contractors, the reconstruction efforts in southeastern Wisconsin highlight how infrastructure improvements promote economic growth, private investment in communities and a high quality of life,” Traas said. “It’s a message that people can relate to regardless of whether you’re talking about Milwaukee, or Menasha, or Merrill.”

The Zoo Interchange on Milwaukee’s far west side provided Tremmel-Anderson Trucking LLC, Sussex, with a combined $3.65 million in subcontracts, according to state documents. Chief executive officer Theresa Tremmel-Anderson said she bought the company and one truck from her mom at age 19, and grew the fleet to 10 rigs over two decades. She also partners and mentors smaller local companies, generating work for a fleet of more than 80 trucks, she said. Those trucks haul excavated dirt, asphalt, concrete and other materials for highway projects.

The work on major highway jobs, including $7 million Tremmel-Anderson Trucking did on the Mitchell Interchange reconstruction in Milwaukee, means recruiting more trucks to the fleet and adding office workers, Tremmel-Anderson said. Like many contractors, Tremmel-Anderson runs a family business and intends to eventually pass her firm on to her children.

“What I do is very personal for me,” she said. “I grew up in trucking and both of my children are in business with me. It’s a generational company.”

Growth looks different at Chilstrom Erecting Corp., established in 1931 in Milwaukee. Chilstrom added and trained more foremen over the past few years so the contractor can take on more projects at once, said manager Larry Adornato. The company just hired its first full-time safety director, an asset lead contractors and project owners want subcontractors like Chilstrom to have.

If the company keeps bidding projects successfully and making a profit, Chilstrom can hire more estimators and bid for more work in the future, Adornato said. Chilstrom, which handles rebar and reinforcing steel, landed subcontracts for $1.78 million on Zoo Interchange contracts.

“As far as dollars, we’re probably doing three times the amount of work we were doing 10 years ago, probably because there is more work in general,” Adornato said. “When it’s busy, we’re on 20 different projects a day, from one- and two-man jobs to jobs where you have 20 to 25 workers.”

FORGING PARTNERSHIPS

Choice, Tremmel-Anderson Trucking and Chilstrom are subcontractors who do specific work for the big general contractors such as Zenith Tech Inc. and Zignego Co. Inc. of Waukesha, and Chicago-based Walsh Construction Co., that bid for the DOT’s eight- and nine-figure prime contracts.

The local industry initially was leery of Walsh crossing the border to bid on jobs such as the Marquette Interchange and Interstate 94, but subcontractors are benefiting by building a relationship with the company. Walsh recently landed the $172 million Hoan Bridge reconstruction, and hired Choice Construction for an $8.6 million subcontract on the job.

Walsh Construction also recruited Brian Mitchell and Choice to work on the Ohio River bridge project, paving the way for the Menomonee Falls company to expand its borders. Choice Construction first subcontracted with Walsh on the Marquette Interchange, Mitchell said.

“You only want to do work this far from home with somebody you trust,” Mitchell said via cell phone from Kentucky.

Officials from Walsh Construction did not respond to calls for comment.

Partnerships forged with national players on the Marquette Interchange and other projects also helped Milwaukee engineer Kapur & Associates Inc., said Tim Anheuser, vice president and project manager. Kapur has worked on railyards in Boston, Chicago and Texas, and dams in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

That geographic growth is thanks to partnerships, but also to new services Kapur added to its toolbox in response to the steady stream of local work. The engineer invested in new software, equipment and people to beef up its digital modeling, Anheuser said. It has hired a dozen people in the past three years for that work, he said.

“We probably wouldn’t be investing to the extent we are if it weren’t for these mega-projects,” he said.

Kapur, which did its first DOT design work in 1984, is part of a three-way joint venture called Forward 45 with nationwide engineering firms HNTB and CH2M Hill to engineer the Zoo Interchange reconstruction. Kapur has never played as important a role in such a project that large, Anheuser said.

And there is more significant work to come for builders who are riding the interstate reconstruction wave that started with the Marquette Interchange a decade ago.

The $1.65 billion reconstruction of Interstate 94 will last into 2021. Around that time, the up to $1 billion Stadium Interchange and I-94 east-west project, along with the reconstruction of 14 miles of I-43, could be ready for construction if state money is approved for them.

Meanwhile, the Zoo Interchange’s most expensive work is on the horizon. Consultants from Forward 45 on Feb. 26 spoke to a room of about 60 builders looking to land work on the Zoo Interchange’s next contract, which will be bid out this summer.

Responding to a question from one builder, engineer Mike Paddock of CH2M Hill estimated the contract to be worth “somewhere around a couple of hundred million dollars.”